A rural hospital in India. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)The Union cabinet today (22 March) approved the centrally sponsored Ayushman Bharat Scheme which seeks to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families under a health cover of upto Rs 5 lakh per year.
The scheme will be applicable on all primary, secondary and tertiary hospitalisations in India, except a banned list and will cover 40 per cent of the population. The families to be covered will be chosen through the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) database.
The benefit of the scheme will be portable throughout the country with the benefit being provided to the families being transferred to the hospitals cashlessly. The scheme will take over from the existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and integrate with other state health schemes.
The Centre will set up a Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission Council (AB-NHPMC) at the apex level chaired by Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, which will co-ordinate with respective State Health Agencies (SHA) to implement the scheme.
The scheme was announced by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his Union budget announcement on 1 February. It has been touted as the biggest health care scheme in the world and is popularly referred to Modicare on the lines of Obamacare in the United States.
(PIB)
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